Emerging from the depths of despair...

...Actually, just emerging from a long hiatus, an even longer soul-searching, some honest reappraisal of my priorities, and some annoying health issues. Nuff said.

Over at Stand Firm, frequent contributor Sarah Hey articulates the Anglican state-of-affairs quite well when she states: "There are only two real options for the Anglican Communion: discipline, and thus a restored, clear, boundaried identity, or fracture and an incoherent, undisciplined identity for what remains of the Anglican Communion."

I very much concur with this statement (though not very frequently with much else over at Stand Firm, I should note). I also have to admit that, of the two options, our present struggles will probably yield the latter outcome. If so, then (personally speaking) I will have to prepare for an existence in "what remains of the Anglican Communion," for (at this time) I cannot see myself joining the much anticipated Nigerian-led exodus!

Despite my hiatus and soul-searching, I wish my readers to understand that my essential understanding of Anglican Catholicity has not changed. I believe the Church Catholic always lives within the tension between its struggle to maintain fidelity to its creedal commitments and the need for the application and adaptation of those commitments to the unique set of contextual pressures that face the Church of every age and in every culture. Into this tension we are obliged to mix the advances of learning (theological, scientific, societal, hermeneutical, etc.), along with the scholarly reappraisal of time-honored formularies and traditions that inevitably takes place in each age. Sometimes such inquiries prove harmful and end up hindering progress (like mutations in the genetic code). Much of the time they prove benign. But sometimes (and I believe ultimately) the process of inquiry, testing, and affirmation produces the very theological adaptations necessary to articulate and communicate the "faith-once-delivered" from generation to generation. In short, the Church Catholic must inevitably experience conflict, often tumultuous conflict, as it balances out these factors. We live in just such an age.

P.S. - Written diligently in "E-Prime".